Business Ethics in an Organization - Case Study Example

Business Ethics in an Organization – The Citizens Foundation, Pakistan The organization chosen for this paper is a privately funded NGO operating within the Pakistani sector. It is called The Citizens Foundation or TCF for short. TCF has been in operation for more than a decade now and has been providing quality education to the under-privileged at a very nominal cost and at times even free. The funding for providing education to the young ones comes directly from its donors which are far and wide. Basically, TCF has focused its operations solely on providing education to the rural children and that at times has also included the semi-urban kids as well. TCF has to its credit more than 330 schools to date and it plans to build a total of 1000 schools before it decides to go on the support mode – meaning whereby it would just look after the schools already built and not construct any further. TCF schools are a mark of quality and dedication – built from strength to strength of the organizational employees, its varied stakeholders and the innumerable donors who have done more than they could in such a short period of time. For TCF to remain committed to its cause of providing state of the art and free education there is a dire need to comprehend the fact that TCF remains ethically correct in all its actions, behaviors and talks. For this, there are several departments working within its realms which take care of these facets from time to time. In fact the vision is set on a very proactive level within the lengths and breadths of TCF itself. TCF provides complete financial details and break up of the tasks to it donors on a periodic basis and makes sure that the donors remain on board with the ethical domains of the organization at all times. There is a separate department that looks at the way these donors are managed. It is known as the Resource Mobilization department which essentially takes care of the donors and the resources that are mobilized through them towards the schools that they build in either their own name or of their company’s. Coming to the quarters of understanding the ethical undertakings within the business realms of TCF itself, one finds that TCF has long adhered to the principle of being transparent to all its stakeholders and thus the fact that its annual reports, financial ledgers and other similar resources are shared not only within the organization itself but also with the stakeholders and the general public at large. What this does is to have a proper one-on-one interaction with the people who want to donate just about anything under the banner of providing quality education to the under-privileged children. TCF has guaranteed that it will remain steadfast as per all its actions and it would never hide anything from the general public. Its audit reports and financial resources are easily available from the company’s website which is a testimony of the above-mentioned fact. It puts TCF in good rapport of the general public who seem to have an issue or two every now and then against NGOs which are run in a private manner. TCF has made sure that its undertakings are given the much needed mileage within the media and for that it has a set budget as well, which does not come from the donors’ pocket but is generated through other means of earning. Corporate Social Responsibility is internal to an organization; it dictates the manner in which it has to plan about the courses of action it has to carry out with respect to the society. This term basically deals with the organization’s set of operations that it carries out for the welfare of the society while existing within itself. It helps the humanity in more than one ways, to train and educate them and to ponder upon issues, which can really change the fate of coming civilizations. It all comes under this heading of Corporate Social Responsibility. TCF makes sure that its Corporate Social Responsibility regimes are set in proper order and that there is a close association and liaison amongst the varied publics. TCF makes it a point to remain loyal and honest as per its policies and undertakings and never lets anyone point fingers on the way TCF carried out its operations, actions and so on. Corporate Social Responsibility for TCF helps as a survival agent in the differing economic settings, more so within the realms of Pakistan. By that it means whenever the economical climate within Pakistan changes, it favors TCF’s Corporate Social Responsibility regimes with respect to its role in fulfillment of the social responsibilities. This can be regarded as an advantage of TCF whereby the organization gets a slight edge as opposed to the other ones in the NGO sector who have not actually started with the idea of investing with consideration to the society in the forms of different sponsors, helping of other NGOs and the like. TCF strives to bring value to its donors, stakeholders and create an encouraging environment for the employees and workers. The aspect of learning is tied in closely with the organization since it has to seek future donor activities, tasks and processes in line with the already completed research and surveys. The ethical dilemmas which TCF faces from time to time include its resuscitation of the donated money and asking the donors for their return donations. What this means is that there is a sense of ‘not paying again until pushed’ attitude within the donors and since TCF is already dependent on these donations for building the schools and giving the financial expenses to the third parties who construct the schools in different parts of Pakistan, the blame comes down on the shoulders of TCF itself. The donors seem nagging at times and delay the installments on one context or the other while the construction team faces undue pressure from the builders. In all these undertakings, the pressure comes pretty hard on the Resource Mobilization department which must ensure that the donors are on board and that they have not backed with their promise of giving the installments so that the schools could be built in a very sophisticated way. The dilemma seems to cause some friction between the donors and TCF since TCF is entirely dependent on the money which donors give and if these donors back out at some stage within the construction cycle, then TCF asks for legal help because the school which is being built under a particular donor’s name must be shifted onto another before TCF could ask for a new donor’s help (in the form of money alone). Due to these problems, TCF has made it a policy to clearly spell out the terms and conditions under which TCF would build a school for a donor and the choice of location for the said location lies entirely within the domains of the construction team. What this means is that the Education Department discerns the regions where there are no schools and forwards the requests to the top management to ask donors to construct schools where the education levels are in doldrums. The donors must agree to the choice of location for the schools beforehand, as the TCF policy for donors outlines. One should believe that these dilemmas could be removed and managed at the same time in a much better fashion. The ethical domains of TCF are very transparent and there is no point whatsoever to further strengthen the same tangents. What is missing is a sense of following up with the donors on a more consistent basis than is present at the moment. As is the case, it is a policy construct within TCF that a donor must not be contacted until it is time for a donation to be made on the donor’s part. There is a catch in this method of dealing with the donors. The donor starts to feel as if his money is everything for which he is being contacted, no matter how noble his cause ought to be. He starts feeling as if he is money making machine for the NGO though in reality this is not something that was/is envisaged by TCF at any point in time. In order to avoid conflicts at any stage within the relationship of TCF with the donor, TCF goes into a very negative mindset and starts treating them in a very formal manner – one which the donors usually do not quite come to terms with. If TCF’s different departments start to think in a pragmatic manner and treat the donors as if they would treat another person, there would be a sense of urgency whilst getting the installments from the donors themselves. The donors will feel appreciated for their support towards the cause of TCF in the first place and they would like to tell their friends and family members about the goodness that TCF brings to their lives. There would be a sense of empathy in the whole relationship, one which must begin from the TCF’s end. Bibliography Berkhout, Tom. (2005). Corporate Gains: Corporate Social Responsibility Can Be the Strategic Engine for Long-Term Corporate Profits and Responsible Social Development. Alternatives Journal, Vol. 31 Besser, Terry L. (2002). The Conscience of Capitalism: Business Social Responsibility to Communities. Praeger Dunning, John. (2003). Making Globalization Good: The Moral Challenges of Global Capitalism. Oxford University Press Husted, Bryan W. (2006). Corporate Social Responsibility in the Multinational Enterprise: Strategic and Institutional Approaches. Journal of International Business Studies, Vol. 37 Kline, John M. (2005). Ethics for International Business: Decision Making in a Global Political Economy. Routledge Lefkowitz, Joel. (2003). Ethics and Values in Industrial-Organizational Psychology. Lawrence Erlbaum Associates Rudman, Richard. (2003). Performance Planning and Review: Making Employee Appraisals Work. Allen & Unwin Siegel, Donald S. (2006). Three Lenses on the Multinational Enterprise: Politics, Corruption, and Corporate Social Responsibility. Journal of International Business Studies, Vol. 37 Simmons, Annette. (2003). When Performance Reviews Fail: Performance Management Often Conflicts with Relationship Management. Negative Feedback Doesnt Motivate; Ignoring the Subjective Element in Reviews Undermines Employee Attitudes. Heres a Proposal for an Alternative Review System That Takes into Account the Important Emotional Aspects. T&D, Vol. 57 Sims, Ronald R. (2003). Ethics and Corporate Social Responsibility: Why Giants Fall. Praeger Word Count: 1,522 Read More